2020 Engineering graduate Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges connected to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Friday.<\/p>\n
United States District Judge Margaret Garnett announced that Mangione will be sentenced on Dec. 18 and will serve at least 85% of the maximum time. He is still scheduled to be tried next month in the state of New York for several charges, including second-degree murder \u2014 though his lawyers may challenge his ability to stand trial now that his federal case has ended.<\/p>\n
In his statement, Mangione said that he posed as an investor to obtain information about a conference and 3D printed a gun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan,\u201d Mangione told Garnett. \u201cI understood that my actions would place him in fear of death or bodily injury. I knew what I was doing was illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The announcement came after reports on Thursday indicated that a guilty plea<\/a> was imminent. The maximum possible sentence for the two stalking charges is life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n Get the DP delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n The guilty plea in Mangione\u2019s federal case largely brings one chapter of the Penn graduate\u2019s court saga to a close. However, it also opens questions about double jeopardy \u2014 a constitutional protection preventing defendants from being prosecuted twice for the same offense.<\/p>\n Mangione and his lawyers have long opposed the simultaneous prosecutions. State prosecutors could argue that the offenses are different, meaning that Mangione\u2019s New York case could still move forward.<\/p>\n Mangione\u2019s state trial is scheduled to begin jury selection on Sept. 8.<\/p>\n His federal case was heavily politicized in April 2025, when then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced<\/a> that she had directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, citing \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s agenda to stop violent crime.\u201d<\/p>\n Weeks later, he was federally indicted<\/a> on two counts of stalking, a firearms offense, and murder through the use of a firearm \u2014 the last of which carries a possible death penalty. He pleaded not guilty<\/a> at his arraignment, where Garnett cautioned the Department of Justice against making public commentary on the case that could hamper a fair trial.<\/p>\n Mangione\u2019s lawyers asked<\/a> Garnett last September to prevent federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty due to Bondi\u2019s remarks, arguing that authorities turned his arrest into a \u201cMarvel movie\u201d spectacle. The motion submitted by his lawyers also cited<\/a> his academic accomplishments and his time at Penn.<\/p>\n Prosecutors contested<\/a> the defense\u2019s claims, arguing that \u201cpretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.\u201d<\/p>\n In January, Garnett dismissed<\/a> the firearms and murder charges, taking capital punishment off the table.<\/p>\n Mangione\u2019s federal trial was scheduled to begin in January 2027.<\/p>\n Staff reporter James Wan covers academic affairs and can be reached at wan@thedp.com<\/a>. At Penn, he studies communication and computer science. Follow him on X @JamesWan__<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2020 Engineering graduate Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges connected to the death of UnitedHealthcare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-265831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}